It takes a person to run a community college, but it takes the right person to run it well.
As Las Positas College transitions from Dr. Kevin Walthers to the next president chosen by the Board of Trustees and the district chancellor, an interim president is needed to fill the void. That void has been filled by none other than Dr. Guy Lease, who will bear all presidential responsibilities until the end of September.
“You get the right person, not a person,” Ted Kaye, executive director of the LPC Foundation president, said. “Guy was a natural choice because he knew the college. He believes that it’s all about the students.”
Dr. Lease did not arrive at LPC until August 2010, and a lot happened before then to mold him into a natural choice for the school.
Born just south of Houston, Texas and raised in the city itself, Lease experienced firsthand the community college experience when he attended Del Mar College in Corpus Christi on a basketball scholarship. He remained there for two years and began to get involved in his first leadership activities.
“It was my first opportunity to dip my toe into leadership activities,” Lease said. “I ended up being vice president of my freshman class, and president of my sophomore class.”
After graduating from Del Mar, he went on to attend Rice University in Houston. He still played basketball and even became assistant coach for a year.
Basketball was never a career option for him, he said, because of his 6’0” height and lack of interest, but coaching is something he looks back on now and thinks he would have liked to pursue. That option was unavailable to him, however, because just shortly after he graduated from Rice University, he was drafted into the military to fight in the Vietnam War. He was only 22.
“Once you get your draft notice, game’s over,” Lease said. “One of the things that stuck with me that the drill sergeants talked about was if you listen to what we tell you, and if you listen to the training we’re giving, if you follow what we tell you to do, your chances of survival when you go to Vietnam are going to be greatly advanced. And there were a lot of people getting killed in those days.
“It’s not like a war game. It wasn’t to me. It’s not like these video games and things. To me it was like I’m going to be putting my life on the line for my country and I want to try to survive this and I want to learn everything I can so that I would have a better chance of survival. Obviously, I’m here.”
After serving for two years, he went to Europe for a few years to serve the U.S. government there. In a matter of time, he had received a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Utah and was enrolled in the doctoral program in educational administration at the University of Southern California. He was then employed in the K-12 system as an assistant superintendent. This job lasted for five or six years. It was at that point that he became a dean at Lake Tahoe Community College.
“It was brand new. There was no campus. It was only a storefront, really,” Lease said.
He was there for 25 years, as dean and president. In that time, the campus sprung up and flourished into more than triple the original head count.
He then retired on June 30, 2008, and began the very next day as interim president at Fresno City College. The differences were significant, starting with population size. Whereas Tahoe only had about 1,700 students at the time of his departure, FCC had 35,000. The change of location was also a drastic difference.
“While there is some diversity in Lake Tahoe, the diversity in Fresno was incredible,” Lease said. “There were kids from everywhere and it was a college that was located in an older part of downtown that was economically depressed. There was a lot of crime around us, a lot of gang activities. The college was sort of a little island. The gangs didn’t really come on it. We didn’t really have any crime on the campus to speak of, and the kids who were coming to school, they sort of saw it as the real hope for a better life, a better future for themselves and their families. And the faculty was so focused on helping these kids, and they needed it so much.”
It was after this interim assignment was finished that the Chabot-Las Positas Community College district chancellor at the time, Joel Kinnamon, asked Lease to come to LPC. That was in August 2010, and he served for about a year between presidents DeRionne Pollard and Kevin Walthers.
“I was so impressed by the college. I was really impressed by the community. I had never been to Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin other than to zoom through on 580 or 680, and my wife and I really came to enjoy being here,” Lease said. “We made a lot of friends on campus. There’s an amazing quality of people here, from the board to the administration to faculty and staff.”
His coworkers feel the same way.
“I can’t tell you how much I respect him,” Kaye said. “You can’t find enough nice things to say about the man for me. I really respect him and learn from him.”
While he and his wife stay in Livermore during the remainder of his interim assignment, their real home resides in South Lake Tahoe. So does their daughter and three grandsons, who they brought out to visit them last week before school started.
“They’re hanging out at the pool and they’re having a great time. Kind of a last week vacation for them,” Lease said.
His son, who has a Ph.D. and teaches theater, travels worldwide for his work. Currently, he is a faculty member at the University of London. Lease and his wife will be going to see him once Lease’s time here at LPC is done.
“I see a college that is still looking forward to the future for greater things, in terms of its ability to serve our students,” Lease said in reference to LPC. “We get to work with some really talented people. It’s just really lovely up here.”